Cruises – tide by tide

Ready to go

Spring Fever is ready to launch, with the topsides polished, the bottom antifouled, the engine serviced and an overhaul of the electronics. She hasn’t looked as smart for quite a while.

We will be afloat from May 14, very late for us. We’ve given up our mooring in Cowes because we are going to Scotland for a year, and it has been cheaper to stay ashore until we are ready to go than to pay as a visitor.

*Polished and painted: Spring Fever in the Kingston Yard, Cowes*

The rigging and the Furlex will be checked by the professionals at Spencers once we’re afloat, and then we’ll head for the east coast, with a pause of several weeks at Woolverstone near Ipswich, because of other commitments.

Rowing the Venetian way

A visit to Venice brought the chance to learn the basics of rowing all over again. We found there’s almost no relationship between how a Venetian rows and the way we learnt at home.

You don’t push or pull vigorously, you glide and slide your oar, tipping it gently to steer the boat, with a light touch and a rhythmic motion.

Oldie plans

And following up my last post, here’s what we’ve been thinking about for next year’s cruise: a third round-the-British-Isles voyage, at an even more leisurely pace than before, giving time to explore places we missed and revisit some of the most memorable.

…and back again

We grabbed a brief window of good weather to take Spring Fever back from Suffolk to Cowes. Crossing the Thames Estuary, we retraced our route out, including Foulger’s Gatt, which runs across the London Array windfarm.

After stopping in Ramsgate for the night, we went through the Gull Stream, inshore of the Goodwin Sands. Two Border Force vessels followed us – they had spent a long night finding and rescuing migrants from small boats.

Follow the wind

After leaving the boat in Cowes for a few days for the force sevens to blow over (see previous post) we returned still undecided about where to go: south to the Channel Islands and down to St Malo? But it’s already the French holiday season, the English one is starting and there’ll be packed moorings and marinas everywhere, plus the new customs and immigration bureaucracy.

Furthermore, it looks from the forecast as if the first three days after arriving will be spent sheltering somewhere. After that we’ll be worrying about finding a weather window to get back to Cowes a few days later.

Aimless cruising

Mike Peyton’s annual cruise with his club had a simple policy: don’t discuss where to go, don’t collaborate on planning and all set off about the same time. It seems that at the dictate of wind and tides, the club members would invariably end up in the same place anyway.

I can understand how that happens, after 10 days of this July’s weather. If you are a cruising sailor of a certain age who does not want to exhaust yourself and your crew to windward, the options for where to go narrow right down as soon as you check tides and wind.

*Dartmouth entrance in better weather, last time we visited*

Transadriatica 2023

It was one of the best Transadriatica’s from Venice to Novigrad and back that anyone could remember. Winds in the northern Adriatic are notoriously fickle and changeable, and sometimes disappear for hours to leave a glassy calm. This time, apart from a brief lull or two on the way out, we had steady winds all the way.

Martin and I were sailing two-handed in his Spiuma, starting on Thursday evening in Venice and arriving in Novigrad early on Friday afternoon.

*Receiving our prize in Novigrad for the smallest boat to finish*

*Dinner out in Novigrad – we were with two other crews at this table.*

On the way home, over Saturday night, we managed to finish at the lagoon entrance at 0930 on Sunday. We were back in time for an early lunch, whereas usually we’d be lucky to make it for tea or an early glass of prosecco. The race sponsor was in fact Drusian, a wine producer from Valdobbiadene, one of the best prosecco areas, and each boat was given a bottle.

Sigma 362 gets top marks

Practical Boat Owner’s current issue goes to great lengths to praise the qualities of the Sigma 362. It is given three whole pages of an 8 page article on the best cruiser-racers to adapt to cruising.

That’s quite an accolade for a 1980s design that was last built in the early ’90s.

August – Dun Laoghaire to Cowes

Covid caused a full week’s delay in Ireland, and the weather forecast added another three days. By then we were feeling fit, though perhaps tiring a touch more easily than usual. We grabbed the chance to see more of Dublin, along with Rob, who arrived by ferry late on Sunday night.

*Sandy Cove, Joyce’s Tower almost hidden behind the trees on the right*

Near Dun Laoghaire, the James Joyce Tower and Museum at Sandy Cove is fascinating both for its atmosphere and – at weekends – for the fluent storytelling about Joyce and Ulysses by the volunteers who staff it. The tower is the setting of the first page of the book.

July – passage to Ireland

The plan before Covid struck was to allow three weeks for a cruise to the Irish Sea, which is quite difficult to time exactly because of the uncertainties involved in rounding Lands End.

To make the new cruise work on our original pre-Covid timescale, Tony and I had taken advantage of a generous offer from Antony F to arrange a mooring for us at Saltash Sailing Club, an attractive and friendly place near the Tamar bridges (see June post).

*Dolphins all the way from Plymouth to Helford – here’s one about to surface*

A good wind to get to Lands End from Plymouth is often a bad wind for carrying on northwards to Ireland. Strong winds can also prevent rounding the headland for days, as we found in 2007 when we were held up for a week in Falmouth.

Covid strikes the crew

It was a lovely cruise to Ireland at first, with fine, sunny weather rather than the extraordinarily high temperatures that hit central and southern England. But half way through we had a problem for which there was no easy answer – three of us tested positive for Covid after feeling as if we were getting mild colds, with headache, sinusitis and sore throat.

*The loch from a hill behind Carlingford*

We did the tests at Carlingford Marina, which looks across its loch to Northern Ireland on the opposite bank. We had all had dinner in a pub two nights before, after seeking out a quiet room in an otherwise crowded place. That pub does seem to be the likeliest source. The result was obviously as worrying for the fourth crew member as for the three with the virus. One of the crew, Antony, had left from Dublin, so escaped the bug, while Peter F had only just joined there.

Venice’s Vogalonga

The first boat to appear at the Dogana on the Grand Canal after the 30 km Vogalonga rally round the lagoon and canals of Venice was a coxed eight. It was another 40 minutes before the arrival of the first of the traditional Venetian boats, the ones everyone really wants to see.

All the boats finished further up, beyond the Rialto, and they then paraded down to the official pontoon at the Dogana, which is at the entrance to the Canal.

There they received their awards for participating in the lagoon marathon, which is open to any boat as long as it can be rowed or paddled. It took place on the Sunday before the Transadriatica.

June – the Transadriatica

It was great to be back as crew in the Transadriatica this year, after two years suspension because of Covid.

The race is actually a double one, just under 60 miles out from Venice to Novigrad in Croatia, and back again after a day’s relaxation in the delightful little seaside resort – how can you beat that for a civilised way to compete?

Novigrad is in Istria, close to some excellent vineyards producing wine from the Malvasia grape. There is a strong Italian influence on the food and the architecture, reflected in the town’s other name of Cittanova. That goes back to the days before the peninsula of Istria was taken from Italy and handed to Yugoslavia after the second world war.

January – Brexit blues

After years of trying to work out what Brexit means for yachts, there are still some annoying issues yet to be cleared up, a month into the new regime.

The most vexed question is still VAT. Most of us do have an answer, though not the one we wanted: our boats lost their EU VAT status if they were not moored in a continental port when the transition period ended. That means that in future they can only be temporarily taken to EU countries.

But a minority is still in a potentially expensive limbo. These are the owners who have been away from the UK for more than three years, who may have to pay VAT for a second time if they return with a boat they bought and paid VAT on here.

New Brexit chaos for yachts

Just when most yacht owners thought they had understood the impact of Brexit, the government has changed the rules on Value Added Tax, with expensive consequences for some.

Last year there were assurances that, after Brexit, a yacht that has been away from the UK on a long term cruise, typically a few years in the Mediterranean, would not have to pay VAT on returning.

Now it looks as if many will have to pay up, even if the boat was bought VAT-paid in the UK before it left – in other words, owners could find themselves paying VAT twice on the same boat. The second charge would be based on its market value at the time of its return.

Needless to say, cruising yacht forums are full of anger and anxiety, though this is not an issue that will get much sympathy anywhere else because yacht owners are not exactly an under privileged minority.

However, many are far from rich, living aboard on tight budgets for much of the year, often after retirement – ‘fulfilling their dreams’ as the yachting magazines love to put it – a far cry from the superyacht owners everybody hates (who in any case probably arrange their affairs so they do not pay European or UK VAT). And while it is very much a minority problem, how many other much more important parts of the economy are being hit by similar administrative chaos 10 weeks ahead of final departure from the EU?

Both the Royal Yachting Association and the Cruising Association are rather desperately seeking clarity from the government. The Treasury’s position seems to be that under EU rules we already charge VAT on a returning yacht after an absence of more than 3 years. It has decided this will continue to be part of the UK rulebook after Brexit.

But until now the practice has been to suspend the rule in many cases, by exempting private yachts that come back after more than 3 years, as long as they are under the same ownership and have had no substantial upgrades (eg a new engine). In these circumstances, the VAT charge has not been levied. The latest indications are that this concession may go.

Just as alarming for many people, the government has changed the point at which the clock starts on the 3 VAT-free years. Last year the RYA was told that a boat currently kept in an EU-27 country such as France or Greece would be treated as if it had left the UK at the point the UK itself finally leaves the EU ie at the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. That would give a full 3 years to get back.

Now departure has been redefined as the point at which the boat physically left the UK. Any boat already kept abroad for more than 3 years will be liable to VAT if it returns to the UK after 1 January 2021. This led to howls of protest from the RYA and a promise that there would be an extra year – but no clarity about what that meant.

Would it allow a yacht that has already been abroad more than 3 years another year up to the end of 2021 to come home VAT free? Or would it just add one year to the 3 year grace period, so a yacht that has been away 4 years or less will not pay VAT after 1 January next year, but one that has already been away 4 years and a month will pay?

There’s another set of EU rules that make this even more onerous, if the UK imports them into its own post-Brexit system after we leave, as it seems to be doing with the 3 year rule.

Currently, as long as the importer of a yacht is not an EU resident, the yacht can be temporarily imported for up to 18 months without paying VAT. But if the importer is an EU resident, VAT becomes payable on arrival. (Nationality of the importer and registration country of the yacht are irrelevant – it is the country of tax residence of the importer that matters).

In the past, the UK has taken a tough line on this, with no grace period, though there has been at least one exception among EU countries – Greece in the past certainly allowed a month. If the rule is kept by the UK after Brexit, and applied strictly, it would be risky for a UK resident yacht owner to call in for a day at home in a yacht that has been abroad more than 3 years. The VAT would be chargeable immediately.

The rule seems to be aimed at stopping UK residents keeping their yachts VAT-free in tax havens such as the Channel Islands but using them in the UK – an obvious tax loophole if it were left open.

In fact Spring Fever was first registered in Guernsey in 1988. We have the VAT certificate to prove it was paid when the boat was imported into the UK a few years later, a vital document we guard carefully, especially in these new circumstances. With the first owner on the documentation shown as being a Guernsey resident, we may well be asked to prove VAT has been paid.